


Rainfall

by YoGrossDude



Category: Horizon: Zero Dawn (Video Game)
Genre: Established Relationship, F/M, Fluff, Kissing in the Rain
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-04-14
Updated: 2020-04-14
Packaged: 2021-03-01 17:02:03
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,124
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/23650510
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/YoGrossDude/pseuds/YoGrossDude
Summary: Written for the tumblr prompt "wet kisses after finding refuge from the rain."
Relationships: Aloy/Erend (Horizon: Zero Dawn)
Comments: 21
Kudos: 145





	Rainfall

**Author's Note:**

> Also adapted into an incredibly gorgeous [comic](https://fireandspit.tumblr.com/post/620199070298980352/rainfall-cover-based-on-the-fic-by-yogrossdude) by my pal [godliath](https://godliath.com/)!
> 
> why did this have to be 2k who knows

There’s a lot to like about living in Meridian.

The height of summer isn’t one of them.

The entire city is a boiling, sweltering mess, the kind of heat where standing in the shade brings it down to the rough equivalent of standing in front of a spitting Bellowback. You’d have to be nothing less than an enormous idiot to run in this kind of weather at near-noon, especially if you were decked out in full Vanguard steel — and that’s exactly what Erend’s doing, already red-faced and puffing by his third step as he hustles towards the Alight as fast as he can, delayed from being waist-deep in breaking up barters that were all one more bad offer away from a fistfight.

There's already two other members of the Vanguard standing guard at the top of the Alight when he gets there, helmets tucked under their arms and gauntlets shoved into their belts, leaning under what meager amount of shade the stone arch they’re under provides. They straighten immediately when they spot him, thumping their right fists against their chests in salute.

"Captain!" they say in unison, and Erend grimaces as he waves them both down, still trying to catch his breath from climbing up what felt like a thousand stairs.

"Nothing to report, Cap," says Otmur, returning to his original slumped state in an instant. "Everything’s been quiet since they arrived."

He breathes as heavy a sigh of relief as he can manage. "Good." It’s too damn hot to needle them for being out of uniform, so he decides to join them instead, peeling off his gauntlets to stuff them into his own belt.

Dalga tilts her head, a wry, knowing smile Erend does _not_ like pulling at her mouth. "Did you run all the way here, Captain?" she asks.

"No," Erend lies, his chest still heaving as he shoots her a dark look, which only serves to make her grin wider.

Otmur glances curiously between them, frowning in confusion as he wipes a thin sheen of sweat off his brow. Erend watches him open his mouth to speak with something akin to dread, but he’s thankfully interrupted by the arrival of two Sun Priests, their faces screwed up like they got a whiff of an open latrine pit. The pair pushes past all three of them without a single hint of acknowledgement, muttering between themselves in low voices as they stride towards the city proper, their own retinue of city guards waiting for them below.

Dalga spits on the ground once they’re too far away to see; Otmur looks like someone forced him to swallow a tankard full of machine blood. But not even staring down a Thunderjaw could put a damper on the flutter in Erend’s chest when he sees red hair catch the sunlight.

"Aloy!" he says, hoping he doesn’t look as disgustingly sweaty as he feels. He ignores both the way Dalga’s toothy grin is now positively giddy and the expression of slowly dawning realization that’s spreading over Otmur’s face. Easy enough to do, especially when Aloy smiles at him, bright as copper and soft as a summer breeze, and something warm and aching swells up inside him in reply.

“Erend.” She glances towards Otmur and Dalga, her smile fading before she turns back to him, shifting a little. “I’m going down to the market, if you wanted to — ” 

“Yeah,” he blurts, and then winces at Dalga’s barely stifled giggle. “I mean, I can go with you. If you want.”

"I do," she says softly, and now even Otmur is staring open-mouthed and utterly delighted, which means they need to get out of here right now.

“Have fun, you two!” Dalga sing-songs after his back, and Otmur barks out a harsh guffaw, guaranteeing both slags guard duty at the entrance to the sewers for the rest of their miserable lives. He steals a glance at Aloy as they fall in step together, heading towards the mostly-rebuilt Meridian village, but she doesn’t seem bothered. Instead, she looks pensive, worrying her teeth on her bottom lip.

“So, guess you’re all done…” Erend hesitates. “‘Communing with the Spire?’"

It’s what she told Avad and everyone else what she needed to do, but that's not _really_ what she's doing — at least, not in the sense Erend understands it. She’s told him that much, but not anything more.

“For now,” she grates out, and shoots a frustrated glare over her shoulder in the Spire’s general direction.

The Sun Priests — with the notable exception of Mournful Namman — didn’t want her up there. They still _really_ don’t want her up there, and despite saving Meridian twice and being given the Sun-King’s own blessing, Aloy’s had to fight furiously for every inch. It took Avad (with likely plenty of assistance from Marad and Vanasha, now that he thinks about it) weeks of patient negotiations to finally settle on the current arrangement: she can be up at the Alight one day a week from dawn till noon, while the Sun’s strength was building, with two Priests looming nearby eager for the slightest hint of trouble — and two Vanguardsmen not far from _them_ to make sure said trouble isn’t the invented kind.

It’s next to impossible to talk about something without really talking about it, but Erend tries anyway. “Did it...go well?”

She sighs, but it isn’t heavy. “It did.” 

Her hand bumps uncertainly against his, then, like a question. It makes his chest twinge as he covers it with his own, and he watches a little smile curl the corners of her mouth.

True to form, he didn’t really grasp the full implications of what “ _Outcast since birth_ ” actually were until…well, _recently_. It hasn’t changed his feelings any about _this_ , of course, more than happy to take it as slow as she wants to. There’s a good chunk of him still trying to wrap his brain around the fact that this is happening at all, still waiting for the moment when somebody finally kicks him awake. It’s only with the gentlest of encouragement does he meet every timid, tender touch she gives. It’s a slow, sweet kind of fire.

Except when it comes to kissing. There's nothing timid at all about the way Aloy’s been kissing him from the start, and now experience has made her bold.

Hammer to steel, there's a very real chance this might actually kill him.

Erend forcibly drags his brain away from the thought of Aloy’s kisses, thankful for the first time in his life for the summer heat that covers his flush; though, oddly, it seems a few degrees cooler now.

The village is noticeably less bustling than it usually is, most of the activity centered on fishmongers who are trying to desperately offload as much of their stock as they can. Even the loudest metalsellers he’s familiar with don’t seem to be hawking with the same level of enthusiasm that they usually do.

“What’d you need to pick up from the market?” he asks.

She freezes for a heartbeat, like she just realizes she’s caught between a pair of Ravagers. 

“I — just thought we could…look around,” she says, and then meets his eyes with a shy, hesitant look that steals his next breath. “Together.”

The fuzzy pang of affection hits him brutally hard, and he can’t stop smiling even if he wanted to. 

“As long as you don’t mind looking around in a direction that sells food,” he tells her, a corner of Aloy’s mouth pulling into one of those half-smirks that make him weak at the knees — and that’s when it starts to rain.

Well, saying it was raining was like saying the inside of a forge was hot: true, and also the stupidest kind of understatement. It’s a _deluge_ , the sky darkening instantly with a rumble of thunder, water pouring down in loud, heavy curtains. People start scrambling, cloaks going up over heads, the unlucky majority with nothing but their hands to feebly shield themselves from the downpour. Erend squints, the rain coming down so hard it’s tough to even make out shapes, and then Aloy grips his hand tighter and starts leading him towards somewhere he trusts is dry.

He has to sprint for the second time that day to keep up with her, the rain collecting in already overflowing rivers within the shallow grooves on either side of the dirt road. The droplets are ice-cold where they hit his skin, and Aloy’s dressed in that flimsy excuse for armor the Carja in the Hunter’s Lodge wear, which might explain why she's moving so quick. The leather and silks are sticking to her skin by the time they get underneath the awning she finds, both of them panting together as the rain keeps coming down, the noise of it hitting the ground near-deafening.

There’s barely enough room for both of them under here, even though Erend finds there isn’t an inch between them, as though he was drawn to her warmth without even thinking about it. There’s a funny jolt down low in his gut when that realization hits, and he makes a move to take a step away, but Aloy frowns and grabs fistfuls of his sleeves in both hands, so he stays put instead.

Raindrops are clinging to her eyelashes, which is _cute_ in a way that he can’t help but feel slightly disappointed when she wipes them away. Her wet hair is plastered against her forehead, so he probably looks a lot like a drowned, half-shaved rat right now. But Aloy doesn’t seem to mind, settling herself flush against him, tilting up her chin as she smiles at him in a way that makes him dizzier than downing four tankards all at once.

“Guess we’ll have to come back later to look,” Erend murmurs, brushing a stray piece of sodden hair away from her eyes. 

“Or wait for the rain to stop.” Her arms reach up and loop around his neck, comfortable and easy.

He makes a show of pretending to think, his heart slamming against his ribs like a hammer. “Hmm…might be a while. Got any ideas for killing time?” 

Aloy rises up on her toes, and Erend is hopelessly, helplessly lost in the smoldering look in her eyes.

"A few," she says, and then she pulls him into a kiss that kills every coherent thought he has left.

For a long while, the only thing he can process is sensation: the lingering chill of the rain and the heat of her skin, the sweet taste of her mouth and the soft noise she makes in the back of her throat when he wraps his hands around her waist to hold her even closer, his thumbs brushing against her bare stomach. He’s dimly concerned that there might be people watching, staring in utter disbelief as the Savior of Meridian curls up against the Captain of the Vanguard, and then Aloy slips her tongue into his mouth and a startled, pleased groan rolls out from somewhere deep within his chest.

He’d probably still be there until the sun stopped rising if the next thunderclap wasn’t loud enough to rattle his teeth in his skull. It makes both of them jolt apart, though Aloy doesn’t go too far. The reprieve gives him time to move his hands up to frame her face, fingers ghosting along the slender curve of her neck, gives him time to look at her. Drenched to the bone she’s still _gorgeous_ , freckled cheeks and green eyes and soft lips…which are moving, he realizes, too late, which means she’s been trying to tell him something for about a minute now and he hasn’t heard a single word.

“Sorry,” he breathes, genuinely contrite, “you’re gonna have to repeat that.”

She arches an eyebrow at him, but she’s smiling. “What part?”

“Um, all of it?”

Aloy huffs a little laugh, dropping her gaze to where her fingers are playing with his scarf. “I was saying Olin’s apartment is closer,” she says, “if you wanted to dry off. You could put your clothes and armor by the hearth.”

An excuse to spend more time with Aloy _and_ not being soaked anymore sounds better than great, but there’s a not-insignificant problem. “Sure, but I, uh, wouldn’t have anything to change into.”

Aloy shrugs. “I have a blanket.”

He blinks. She’s joking. She _has_ to be.

“A blanket,” he repeats slowly, but she merely flashes a grin that buzzes right down his spine like a tap from a Shell-Walker’s claw, turning on her heel and walking back out into the rain.

Oh, there’s a very real chance all of this might actually kill him. But _Fire and Spit_ , what a way to go.


End file.
